Slouching Towards Eden

or A Visit to a Casino

We slouched through the sclerotic artery of the Capital Beltway, my husband at the wheel. I turned to my book* and read about a glittering glass city floating in the Atlantic, a haven for the rich to escape a future drowning world. The Floating City was designed in concentric circles, each dedicated to a specific class and purpose. Only the elite could enter the inner circle, an Eden where no expense or effort was spared to fulfill their every desire. The workers who toiled to fulfill the dreams of the elite were bused in each day through a tunnel from the broken, flooded mainland. 

The voice of the Navigator intoned, “You have arrived at your destination.” I looked up to find myself on a circular road ringing a massive glass and metal edifice that could have been the Floating City of my book. A monstrous golden lion stood guard over the complex, imperiously crushing dreams of luck and riches under his enormous paws. We entered through the lowest circle of Hell, the parking garage. Exit from this level was not easily accomplished. Dragging our luggage we wandered the aisles like lost souls until finally stumbling upon the well hidden elevators. Somewhere Satan was laughing.

With a mechanical hiss we rose to the Casino level. The serpentine hallway was thronged with scantily clad women teetering on six-inch stilettos followed by sharp-suited men with hungry eyes. Teams of watchful security guards mingled with the crowd. ATMs were arrayed along the walls at strategic intervals, and through doorways we glimpsed serried ranks of game machines emitting a disorienting cacophony of flashing lights and electronic sounds. The humans here were mere go-betweens for the machines, doomed to forever carry cash ejected from the ATMs to feed the ravenous appetites of the insatiable game machines, which occasionally vomited forth a dribble of coinage to keep hope of luck alive. 

We trudged through the snaking coils of the passageway, each curve revealing some new hellscape, until we were ejected from the serpent’s mouth and found ourselves in Eden, a circular light-filled atrium like the inner circle in my book. But this was an ersatz Eden of giant plastic plants and flowers which loomed above us like something out of The Day of the Triffids.

We were soon distracted from the horrors of the decor, for here in the inner circle we were treated to delectable foods presented in golden urns wheeled on soundless silver carts, delicate patisseries in domed cases, and miniature sweetmeats displayed in tiers like precious jewels. We sipped wine in an elegant Italian bar and relaxed on a terrace overlooking the Potomac. The denizens of the casino were forgotten, just as the residents of the Floating City could forget those excluded from their privileged world.

What brought us to this place? Well it was a Credit Union Conference, an odd choice of venue for an organization dedicated to encouraging saving. How many of the attendees slipped away to risk their portfolios in the casino I cannot say.

* The book I was reading is Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
From The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats

Joan Didion’s book of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of my favorite books.